Yo-kai Watch is role-playing game for the Nintendo 3DS developed and published by Level-5. In the West, it was localized and published by Nintendo in 2015 in North America and Australia and 2016 in Europe.

Contents

Gameplay

Yo-kai Watch in a way has similarities to Pokemon. The main goal of the game is to collect all the Yo-kai.

Plot

While searching for bugs, Nate, a young boy, unexpectedly frees a Yo-Kai named Whisper. Whisper gives Nate a device known as the Yo-Kai watch, which detects hidden Yo-Kai that are causing mischief in his town. With help from the watch, Nate can find Yo-Kai, befriend them, and use them to fight against other Yo-Kai.

Reception

Famitsu reviewed it quite well giving it a 36 (9,9,9,9) out of 40. It's first week was middling for a new Level-5 IP, selling about 53,654 according to Media Create. However, as it went and the anime started airing, the game sold a lot more, repeatedly staying in the top ten of the week for several weeks. It has currently sold over a million as June 1, 2014 with most of those sales coming in 2014. It was on its way to being the best selling Level-5 game, until its sequel which did become the best-selling Level-5 game

Other media

In addition to the game, Level 5 started airing an anime animated by OLM, Inc. for the show in January 2014. It rapidly gained popularity climbing the ratings to approach shows like Pokemon.

There are also two mangas ongoing for the series; a shounen one that started in CoroComic in 2012, and a Shoujo one that started serialization on December 27, 2013 in Shogakukan's Ciao magazine. Viz Media picked up manga and anime series for Western release in 2015.

Meanwhile, Bandai Namco was distributing toys and medals for the franchise.